Strategy · 19 October 2026
A new logo for every product, or one mark? Brand architecture
Brand architecture decides how a parent brand and its products sit together. Here's why we didn't draw new logos for Prodarc's products.
A brand starts out with its first product. Then a second one comes along, then a third, and each time the same question lands on the table: should you draw a new logo for this one?
The answer is brand architecture: how a parent brand connects to its products or sub-brands. It’s usually more of a strategy decision than a design job, but its consequences show up most clearly in design.
Two ends, and everything between
At one end, every product is its own brand. Each one has its own name, logo and colours. The parent company stays in the background, and most customers never hear of it.
At the other end, there’s one brand. Every product carries the same mark and only the names change. Customers see the same brand on every product. Most of the identities in our own work have one mark and no product logos to fit around it. Prodarc is the exception.
Most brands sit somewhere in between. Where the right point lies depends on how similar the products are, whether they’re sold to the same people and whether the parent brand lends the products any trust.
Every new logo splits the brand a little
For a company with one brand, a new product logo looks harmless. It isn’t. Every new mark is one more thing a customer has to learn, and it means introducing the product from scratch instead of carrying over everything people already know and trust about the parent brand.
What we did for Prodarc
Prodarc Cyber Security is a start-up we designed an identity for in 2025. Its mark is an abstract monogram drawn from the letter P on a 45-degree grid, and it works on navy, green or white. The company has two products: Prodarc SIEM and Prodarc SOAR.
We didn’t draw separate logos for them. Both use the same P, with SIEM or SOAR in a small tag next to it. On the cover of the Prodarc SIEM data sheet we designed, that’s exactly what you see: the Prodarc logo, with SIEM in its tag. The result is one mark for the company and every product. Nobody has to learn a new logo, and the brand doesn’t split in two.
The structure works going forward too. If a third product arrives, there’s no need for a new logo debate. Only the name in the tag changes.
So when is a separate brand right?
One mark isn’t always the answer. A separate brand makes more sense when the product sells to a very different audience, when the parent brand’s position could hurt it, or when it’s expected to become its own company later.
Even then, a link to the parent brand is possible: the same typeface, the same colour family or a shared element in the mark. A single typeface goes a long way here. Taze Sepet’s guidelines, for instance, run Alegreya Sans through everything from jar labels to the website. Building the architecture on purpose means deciding in advance where that link breaks.
Questions to ask first
When a new product arrives, these help:
- Will it be sold to people who already know the parent brand?
- Does the parent brand’s name add trust to it?
- What would a separate logo give the customer?
- If you had 10 products in 5 years, what would this structure look like?
The last one is the useful one. Ten products from now, you’ll have either a tidy family or a drawer of marks that don’t know about each other.
Brand architecture is one part of our brand strategy service. You can see Prodarc’s identity on its case page.